Modern Transit from London pt 2

January 27, 2010

I actually take the train to work every day. This means I spend over an hour everyday on the train coming and going from work on average twenty-five days a month. Yes, I said twenty five days a month. I work in hospitality specifically Food and Beverage. This means for the uneducated, I work on the days you normally have off and am up before the sun thinks about peeking out and leave work after all of you stumble out of the restaurant, bar or back to your hotel room for the evening and we get done cleaning up the mess ready to see you again the next day.
As I was stating before my rant, I take the trains all the time, at all hours and through all types of weather. (This is England, all types of weather normally occurs within the space of a day.) There are certain things baffling about the modern English rail system. I am not complaining too much about how ticket prices are tied to indexed inflation plus three percent for the next year. I won't even bitch about how the trains stop running before midnight. Don't drink and drive, but if you take the train to a friends or heaven forbid a bar in a different town with friends, you are screwed if you leave after eleven thirty. Nope, not even a complaint about an information system that fails to work properly all the time. "We regret to inform that due to a fault, no real time information can be displayed" Great, so is it coming or not?
Every May and December, the train times will switch by around three minutes. The 5:42 am train leaving Reading going to London will depart on May 16th at 5:39 am. In the first week or so of December, the train will now depart at 5:42 am until May 16th or so when it changes back. All following trains for the day will follow this three minute change. The blindingly obvious reason these train times are in effect are of course leaf fall. "What?" you may ask. At least I asked myself, so I sought out more information. Due to the possibility of heavy leaf fall which would cause the trains to not have the ability to get grip on the rails, they reschedule the trains to run later to allow them to clear the lines.
But most of the leaves fall before the end of November and the train that does the cleaning of the rails runs late in the evening and into the night. (Of course, not past midnight.) Secondly, the rail lines are supposed to be kept clear of overhanging trees and bushes by the maintenance company Network Rail. Nevermind, they are the ones in charge of making sure the rail line improvements are done on time and on budget. So I will give you the overhanging trees ad bushes.
I have the personal belief, the bosses of the company just wanted to sleep an extra few minutes during December through May. Nobody from the trains will confirm this of course. Besides if you had the opportunity to sleep an extra three minutes at four thirty in the morning, wouldn't you? Why not blame it on the leaves which fell a month ago. . .